Celebrate the opening of the first new Plymouth Town Hall in 400 years

Sunday

Oct 8, 2017 at 8:58 AM

If you live in town Selectmen Ken Tavares says you’re invited.

Frank Mand fmand@wickedlocal.com @frankmandOCM

PLYMOUTH – If you live in town Selectmen Ken Tavares says you’re invited. If you are member of a community organization you’re invited, too. Local business? Love to have you all walk together from Lincoln to Russell Street to celebrate the opening of the new Town Hall on Nov. 12.

Take a flag or, if you don’t have one carry one of the town’s.

Take a broom, a new one; its good luck.

Take an orange tree too. The Chinese word for orange and luck are nearly the same.

Freshly-baked bread and salt would be nice – they symbolize prosperity and hospitality – but Town Manager Melissa Arrighi doesn’t want any food eaten in the hallways or at people’s desks. After all, this is the first new Town Hall in 400 years, so she wants to keep it looking good for at least a century or more.

What is it, exactly, that Tavares, the combined Plymouth High School Marching Band, town officials, residents and a smattering of (yet to be named) dignitaries will be doing on Sunday, Nov. 12?

“It’s not a parade, or a procession,” Tavares told the Old Colony this week. “We thought about this for a while. It’s really a community walk, and a community celebration. It’s kind of like a block party only the block is as big as the entire town.

“We’re going to walk from the old Town Hall on Lincoln to the new Town Hall, and we’re going to carry all of the flags with us.”

The move will be pretty much done by that date, the offices up and operating at the new building on Russell Street; that’s happening Oct. 31. But Tavares said he just couldn’t let the opening of the Town Hall go by without marking it with a special event of some sort, something with speeches, symbolism and about “a million thank you's.”

“This is really a historic moment,” Tavares said. “Communities don’t often build new municipal buildings, and this town has a history of re-using, recycling what we have. But this is new and special, and everyone in town deserves credit."

Though there’s no denying that it never would have happened without the support of the entire town, Tavares played a key role, at a critical moment.

The town had purchased the old 1820 Courthouse and the adjacent buildings from the county for under $1 million but after years of heated arguments about how to redevelop it the patience of townspeople was wearing thin.

Then Tavares recalled a conversation he and the Rev. Peter Gomes had standing on the corner by the then dilapidated courthouse.

“'You know,' Peter said to me, in ‘2020 this should be the new Town Hall.’ I’d like to say I agreed with him right away, but I didn’t. I said, ‘yeah right that will never happen.’”

But after years of wrangling about how to redevelop the site – which once housed the Plymouth County Courthouse, county administration, a jail and the Registry of Deeds – the idea of a new town hall at the location took hold, and when Town Meeting approved a local meals tax to pay for it, it took off.

In a few weeks every town department except for the DPW and the School Department will move to the new building, and 12 days after that town officials, the high schools marching band and anyone else who wants to will take that walk.

The plan is to assemble on Lincoln Street beginning around 12:15 p.m. and then walk together over to the new building starting around 1 p.m., arriving a half-hour later.

There will be a speech or two starting at 1:30, the singing of the national anthem, and at 2 p.m. a tour of the building.

“Town Hall really represents the heart of the community, so we hope that, along with residents, representatives from many of the town's community organizations walk with us that day, “ Tavares said. “It’s important that people feel comfortable there, feel at home.

“It’s going to be great for the downtown, great for people doing business with the town, but most of all this building is going to be a source of pride for the entire community for years to come, so I hope everyone can join us.”

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